A Spring selection of new reading.
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Adult educators and the UK honours system
The business of accepting honours from ‘the Establishment’ is a thorny problem and, in the end, has to sit well (or otherwise) with one’s conscience.
Arise, Sir Alan
I’ve been quietly celebrating the award of a knighthood to Alan Tuckett, a lifelong adult educator who is probably best known for his leadership of the National Institute for Adult Continuing Education. Celebrating because the award acknowledges the way in which Alan didn’t simply ‘do his job’, but used his position to provide leadership and visibility for the wider field of adult learning, so that the knighthood can be understood as a public recognition of an important but often overlooked field.
All of this said, I don’t approve of the UK honours system on principle. The system rests on patronage and has been thoroughly tainted by cronyism and rewards for people – notably civil servants – who simply have ‘done their job’. It perpetuates the language of Empire and aristocratic rule, so I find it hard to see how it sits with the egalitarian and meritocratic world…
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Ahoy there, Faye Sewell!
The next in the occasional series of posts offered to guest authors by Wilfred Books will be presented in the style of an interview, in which she explains how she became an author, with Faye Sewell (right), who is already an established actor, with a wide & varied roster of screen rôles under her belt, but couldn’t resist the urge to write! She has now published three classic ‘Pirate’ novels, which will be detailed below.
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Is writing currently your main activity, on a regular basis?
Writing is my secondary occupation, Acting is my primary one. I feel like they’re very complimentary to one another, I have always enjoyed getting inside characters’ heads and building them, whether from clues in a script or a person who walks into my imagination and demands to be written down.
When did you first start writing seriously?
I’ve always written from as far back as I can remember, but all my work would end up being first drafts and incomplete – something I was excited about briefly but had no follow through to complete. Then a few years back I started a book and finished it, realized I just hadn’t been writing about anything that interested me enough in the past – and became so obsessed with my new book that finishing it and going on to complete the trilogy was something that I absolutely had to do.
Which route into publishing did you follow?
I didn’t approach publishers directly as a lot of them seemed closed to unsolicited submissions and while I did write to a few agents, I got tired with stock responses and decided to take matters into my own hands. I was very keen to just get my story out there and having spoken to other writers and hearing how long it could take to find an an agent and from that point on, yet more time to find a publisher, I felt that self-publishing was the way to go for me.
Would you have been open to an offer from a publisher, if one had been forthcoming?
If I had been approached by a publisher and offered a deal, it would have definitely been something that I would have considered – but very dependent on the circumstances. I am very protective of my characters and maintaining their integrity and what I set out to do with my trilogy was and is very important to me. I would of course have been open to feedback, but no major changes and nothing that would compromise creative control to a large extent.
How do you see the future for your writing, from now on?
I’m very lucky in that I do have a lot of time to write and when I’m not acting I can write full-time. I love variety and I think it makes me a better writer, having breaks to work on acting jobs and then returning to what I’m working on with a fresh perspective.
Your Black Feather Trilogy looks very exciting, and deserves to be very successful. The first image below is a link to the Kindle Store on Amazon.co.uk. Thank you very much, Faye, and the best of luck with your writing!
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The third book in this trilogy, Cresting Waves, can be seen in the banner image at the top of this post.
Tim Walker: Independent Author with a foot in the past is my Guest Author this week
These historical novels look exciting!
Please welcome
my Guest Author
Tim Walker
Tim Walker is an independent author based in Windsor, UK.
His background is in marketing, journalism, editing and publications management.
Welcome Tim, I’m really happy to have you as my guest author.
I love anything to do with history so I’m really looking forward to your piece for us.
Let’s find out about Tim:
He began writing an historical series, A Light in the Dark Ages (set in the Fifth Century), in 2015, starting with a novella set at the time the Romans left Britain – Abandoned.
This was followed in 2017 with a novel – Ambrosius: Last of the Romans,
and the third installment,
Uther’s Destiny, has just been released in March 2018.
His creative writing journey began in July 2015 with the publication of a book of short stories, Thames Valley Tales.
In 2016 his first…
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The Big Heather Burnside Book Giveaway
If you fancy a free crime thriller: have a go!
I am excited to announce that from July The Riverhill Trilogy will be republished by Aria Fiction. The books will have shiny new covers as well as being given the once over by one of Aria’s talented editors.
I still have a handful of original copies of Slur, A Gangster’s Grip and Danger by Association. These are the books that I published myself as an independent author under the imprint of D M Publishing, and are shown above. So, as a big thank you to my loyal readers I have decided to give away signed paperback copies of these books.
There is a limited number of each so I can’t let everyone have a copy – I wish I could. Therefore, I am going to offer the books to readers on my mailing list. If you aren’t already on my mailing list then it’s quick and easy to…
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Hilda Kean
Wilfred Books is very pleased to be able to offer a short profile of an author, Hilda Kean (right), who was very helpful with sources and background information that was most useful in the writing of Black Shirt and Smoking Beagles, in the second of an occasional series, in which established authors explain how they undertook the process of writing & publishing their work.
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I haven’t quite thought previously about what I have written, since it covers an odd subject including a medieval Carmelite friar, early education in the initial C20th – including assertive suffrage activists in schools, women’s political history, ways of approaching public history, and histories of animals.
The last two topics came about when working at Ruskin College, Oxford, for over twenty years. I was encouraged by the late Raphael Samuel, with whom I worked, to develop the first MA in Public History in the country, including running many open conferences. Raphael also helped me write my first historical essay on anti-vivisection, published in his History Workshop Journal, and I then went on to the Animal Rights book [see below], and many articles including Greyfriars Bobby, squirrels, animal cemeteries, Trim the cat, animal war memorials and unusual animal statues.
My latest book The Great Cat and Dog Massacre. The Real Story of World War II’s Unknown Tragedy came out last year, and there is a new paperback in the next few weeks. I try to write material on a range of topics on my website, where you can pick up various writing, and welcome comments from readers: http://hildakean.com.
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Hilda Kean’s book, Animal Rights, was published by Reaktion Books.
Anti-Vivisection and the Profession of Medicine in Britain, by Alan W.H.Bates
The latest post in Hilda Kean‘s blog, which is always informative, is a résumé of a recent book on a subject very significant to Wilfred Books, Anti-vivisection and the Profession of Medicine in Britain, by Alan W.H.Bates, in the animal ethics series published by Palgrave. She says:
The impact of anti vivisection upon people’s lives is covered far more interestingly than conventional approaches to the topic. There is good discussion of the Research Defence Society’s hostile approach to the thousands of people campaigning against dog petitions to parliament in the 1920s. There is also interesting discussion of the ambiguous approach of the London and District Anti-Vivisection Society in the 1930s and 40s. … The work is well written, accessible and engaging. Please consider purchasing the book of around two hundred pages to get to a wide range of ideas on this important topic.
On a personal note, there are several references in this book to Wilfred Risdon’s work for the London and Provincial Anti-Vivisection Society, and the National Anti-Vivisection Society (now Animal Defenders International), taken from Black Shirt and Smoking Beagles, which was published in 2013.
This book, of 217 pages, is available in hardcover at a cost of £20, including free shipping for individuals worldwide, from the publisher at this link; alternatively, because it is an open access book, it can be downloaded for free here. Please go to this page for further information and a chapter breakdown of the book.
